In the first century BCE, crime was a problem in the Mediterranean Sea.Particularly, it had a problem with pirates.Cilicia Trachea, or "Rough Cilicia," was a notoriously infested seagoing bandit region in southern Anatolia whose robberies terrified the Romans. Julius Caesar, a 25-year-old Roman nobleman, was captured in the Aegean Sea in 75 BCE by a group of Cilician pirates on his way to Rhodes to study oratory.According to Plutarch's Parallel Lives, Caesar's capture was a minor setback for the pirates, but it was extremely unfortunate for them. Caesar simply refused to act like a captive from the beginning.He laughed at the pirates for not knowing who they had captured and suggested that 50 talents would be more appropriate when they informed him that they had set his ransom at 20 talents.He then sent his escort out to assemble the cash and got comfortable for a time of bondage.It's likely that the pirates were baffled.Rarely does a hostage negotiate a higher ransom. Caesar dominated the pirates and shushed them when he wanted to sleep to make himself at home among them.He made them listen to the speeches and poems he was writing in his unexpected downtime, and if they weren't impressed enough, he called them illiterates.He would partake in the privateers' games and activities, yet he generally tended to them as though he were the commandant and they were his subordinates.He would occasionally threaten to execute them all.Their overconfident and slightly nutty captive took it as a joke. It was not a prank.Caesar was released when the ransom was paid after 38 days.Despite not holding any public or military office, Caesar amazed everyone by assembling a naval force in Miletus and setting out to catch the pirates.He brought them back as his captives after discovering that they were still camped out on the island where he had been held.Caesar went to the prison where they were being held and had them all crucified because the governor of Asia appeared to be at a loss for what to do with them.